Victor Emmanuel was born on Nov. 11, 1869, in Naples. After his father, Umberto I, was assassinated in 1900, Victor Emmanuel succeeded to the throne

In 1896 Victor Emmanuel married Princes Elena of Montenegro. They had five children, among who were Umberto, the last legal king of Italy, and Mafalda, whose death in 1944 at the Buchenwald concentration camp enrolled her among the list of victims of that Fascist holocaust her father had helped to unleash upon Europe.

Victor Emanuel is remembered as a numismatist, having collected a vast number of coins and his collection preserved in the twenty volumes –

Corpus Nummorum Italicorum. Primo tentativo di un catalogo general delle monete medievali e moderne coniate in Italia o da italiani in altri paesi. 20 vols. A. Forni, Bologna, A reprint of Rome, 1910-1943. Hardbound. The most comprehensive collection of Italian coins dating from the Middle Ages up to 1900 ever published, a catalogue of the extensive collection of King Victor Emmanuel, now property of the government of Italy.

In Italy, the impact of World War I produced shifts in the political spectrum. On the left arose factions, some of whom sympathized with the Russian Bolsheviks. To the right emerged the figure of Benito Mussolini, once a prominent Socialist journalist, now the leader of ultranationalist called Fascists. World War II followed, until the capture of Mussolini and his death.

In 1943 Victor Emmanuel, while retaining his title, handed over what was left of the royal power to his son. In May 1946 he abdicated, but the monarchy outlasted him by less than a month.